


In your honor, by your strength

by LiveOakWithMoss



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fall of Gondolin, Fem! Glorfindel, Female Friendship, First Kinslaying, Gen, Helcaraxë, Memories, Rule 63, references to violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 23:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3747088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/pseuds/LiveOakWithMoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of Glorfindel, and the women she followed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In your honor, by your strength

**Author's Note:**

> 0\. For Maria's birthday, and inspired by her prompt for a female Glorfindel.

There is a westerly breeze this night, and as usual, it stirs Glorfindel from sleep and draws her, as if by hand, into the welcoming night. She leans against the smooth carved wood of the balcony, and closes her eyes, Rivendell’s endless murmur of water pushing at her ears. With the wind from the west lifting her hair, and the sound of water whispering to her, she can almost imagine it is the sound of waves she hears, and that the breeze bears on it the smell of salt.

She knows her people are fated to be drawn to the sea, but she is perhaps unique that she has actually voyaged over it – more than once.

And in rather a different direction than most.

The nights the west wind blows are the nights that Glorfindel finds herself far from Rivendell, far from this Age, far from  _Life, This Time_ , as she calls it to herself.

The west wind blows memory.

 

* * *

 

 

Try as she might, the earliest memory of the sea she can summon is Alqualondë.

She is young when their contingent arrives at the bloodstained sand, when they gaze in terror at the raging waters, at the bodies tossed in the waves and against the pier; when they rock back against the weight of that much death. She had thought the murder of the High King a horror, they all had, so unused to seeing violent death – but this, this is a moment that shuts down the mind, the body, even. Some drop to their knees at the sight, while others cast their eyes towards Taniquetil, fearful and prayerful at once. Glorfindel’s eyes are drawn to their prince, standing on the sand, a bloodied blade in his hand, his eyes wild and feverish, and his expression echoes the anguish that claws at Glorfindel’s own heart.  _But with whose blood is his sword stained?_

It is the sight of Galadriel –  _Artanis, Nerwen, our bright and brilliant princess_  – that takes Glorfindel’s breath away. In the shallows she stands, her skirts slashed and her long hair dipped with blood, a blade in her hand, and her voice raised in defiance and despair and terrible grief. It is her mother’s people who lie in the sands, and Glorfindel has no doubt on whose behalf she had been fighting.

And Glorfindel longs for such fierceness, to banish the terrible dread that claws at her.

 

* * *

 

She follows across the ice for three reasons, three women: Galadriel’s fire, Aredhel’s boldness, and Elenwë’s warmth.

Elenwë, whose heels Glorfindel tagged along at as a child, and who now treks across the ice wrapped in furs rather than silks, her child at her breast, her gentle face lit with purpose. (For far too short a time; and her loss is as one of their own, and the host keens to the winds at her passing.)

Aredhel, whose valor is unsurpassed and whose efforts save Glorfindel from frostbite, taking Glorfindel’s freezing feet against her own warm stomach, and making her laugh with bawdy jokes when Glorfindel blinks back tears at the pain of the blood returning to her frozen extremities.

And Galadriel, whose eyes never leave the far horizon, and whose determination is made of steel, is unbent by the howling winds, striking her defiance against the grinding ice.

When Glorfindel begins to shape herself into the warrior she knows she must become, it is on these pillars that she builds herself: warmth and light; boldness and laughter; an iron will.

 

* * *

 

She loves the city, loves its strength and secrets, loves its walls and its people, and the wind that comes up from the plains and runs its fingers through her hair until everything is hopeless tangles but she is grinning so broadly that Ecthelion asks if she is drunk.

And yet – and yet. She can understand why Aredhel chafes at the walls, why Aredhel keeps turning her face to the encircling mountains and why Aredhel, ultimately, leaves.

She does not forget the journey, nor the wild freedom in Aredhel’s laugh as she urges them onwards.

_I follow not at my king’s command, but because who among us has ever been able to say no to our White Lady?_

She does not forgive herself for not being, in some way, to prevent all that happens next.

 

* * *

 

Idril is beautiful, as they say, and Idril is kind, as they note, and Idril is wise, and Idril is  _taking all her money at dice_ , by damn, and Glorfindel stares accusingly at her princess and says, “You truly are your mother’s daughter,” and Idril laughs and finishes off the wine.

Idril is having nightmares, and Idril is uneasy, and Idril does not like her cousin, whose grey eyes and dark hair are almost Aredhel’s and yet not, and Idril is more worried than Glorfindel has ever seen her, and it is the first time Idril has ever asked to have a guard accompany her when she goes on walks on her own. Glorfindel walks at her princess’ side and watches the thoughts flicker behind Idril’s eyes, and wonders at her unease.

 

* * *

 

When Glorfindel falls, the balrog dragging her down, feeling her hair tear out at the roots, her limbs too, she lets herself go, closing her eyes as the flames lash her body. In her mind’s eye, she can see gold hair falling into frozen darkness; a dark-haired figure crumpling over a black dart; and with her last breath she prays that the daughter of Elenwë and the niece of Aredhel might live.

 

* * *

 

She returns to Middle-earth, her questing heart ill-content with the calm of Valinor, driven always by some wildness she feels must have sunk into her through the talons of the eagle who had carried her body, and was never quite purged in the quiet of Mandos’ Halls.

And in the House of Elrond she meets Celebrian – daughter of Galadriel, blood of the man-maiden, scion of the most brilliant of the House of Finwë. And Glorfindel smiles, because it seems only right.

(And later, she wonders if she is fated to watch the loss of the women she loves and follows – Elenwë, gone beneath the ice; Aredhel, withered by the poison of the Dark Elf; Celebrian, torn by the ravaging claws of orcs. But also she remembers Idril, and her survival, and then, in her dark times, Glorfindel wonders if the determining factor there was that she had died to keep Idril alive.  _If I had died for Celebrian, perhaps_ … But no, she has lived twice and died only once.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

The night is warm, and the breeze is dying down, and Glorfindel shakes herself free of memory as footsteps fall behind her.

“Did the wind wake you too?”

“Aye, it did, my lady,” says Glorfindel, easy and cheerful as she twitches free of the weight of recollection, and turns.

Arwen leans up beside her and turns her face, seeking the breeze, but it has almost gone now. “Sometimes I fool myself that I can smell the sea on nights like these,” she says, and Glorfindel only nods.

“Not such a foolish thought, perhaps.” She settles in at her lady’s side, at ease once more.

There will always be one for her to follow – and when there is not, then perhaps she will know it is time to cross back over the seas, and return home.

But there is always one more adventure.


End file.
